Laminate Floor Update

So I can almost say we are done with the laminate flooring in our house.  Nick started on it about three weekends ago and has worked on it each weekend with his friend Mike and our dads and Nick's brother John.  Lets just say my house is still not totally put together but its getting there.  I can't wait till everything is back into its place and the whole house has a good sweeping and cleaning.  But on the upside we are so in love with it!!!  The house looks cleaner, bigger, and smells so much better.  I can see our allergies going way down.  We did laminate in our entire house except or the kitchen and the bathrooms.  So about 1150 square feet.  All we have left is the quarter round in our master bedroom and one wall in the piano room where all the equipment and leftover wood is.  Should be done I would say before June 1.  Then we will return any leftover material for a refund.  I have the best husband in the world and such great friends and family.  Nick just started a new job that is very physically intense but still comes home and slaves over these floors.  Lets just say he is super sore.  We couldn't of done this without Mike and his tools and knowledge and his wife and family for giving him up for a few weekends.  What great friends they are.  And then of course our dads and John - thank you for coming over on late nights to help and move furniture.  So here are pictures!  Our house is still a mess so these are before and after pictures and once we get our house in order I'll have even better after pictures!  If you have any questions please let us know - we totally recommend doing this and have lots of pointers.  

Front two rooms of our house - Dining Room and Piano Room - Before:

Front two rooms - dining room and piano room in the process: 

Foyer - before:

 Foyer - after:

Hallway - before:

Hallway - after:

Codi's Room - before:

Codi's Room - after:

Living Room - before:

Living Room - in the process:

Living Room - towards the end of installation:

Living Room - after:

 Master bedroom - after but still needs quarter round: (so nothing is really in its place)

Connor and Caden's Room - after:

 More finished pictures to come after its all put back together!

Our daughter is here!

Our daughter, Codi JoAnn Bryan has finally arrived and she is the most beautiful baby.  We are so much in love with her.  I just wanted to show off some pictures we took of her while we were at the hospital.  We will be back with more about our sweet daughter after we settle in at home.

Codi JoAnn Bryan

8:50am 

8lbs 9oz.

20 inches long

 Codi JoAnn

 Daddy and Codi

 Big Brother Connor, mommy and Codi

Big Brother Connor holding Codi with Daddy 

 Grandma, Grandpa, Mimi, Papa and big brothers Connor and Caden

 Daddy, Mommy, Connor, Caden and Codi

 Time to head home from the hospital

At home warm and snug

The Bryan's are upgrading to laminate from mauve carpet

Ever since we bought our house we have planned to rip out our carpet and upgrade it.  We bought our house in the summer of 2009 in hopes to upgrade a majority of the house within the first year because I already had a job and Nick was graduating that Fall and we were hoping on him getting a teaching job.  Well God must of thought we were quite funny, because that never happened.  God had way different plans for our life. 

Well fast forward almost three years to now May 2012 and we have done as many updates in our house as possible (painting, taking off wallpaper, etc.) the cheap way.  We have finally made a big purchase and we are getting rid of the carpet finally!!!  WOOHOO - its like Christmas times a million.  We decided to put laminate in our entire house and leave the tile alone in the kitchen/utility and the two bathrooms.  When we tell people we are putting laminate in pretty much the whole house - they are like WOW big project.  But if you knew what our carpet looked like you would of too and with little kids carpet is just not our friend.  Not only did we have the 1970s slightly thick (not shag) mauve carpet, it was filthy, no matter how much we did a carpet cleaning on it.  When you are trying to update your house, mauve carpet just doesn't fit. 

We ended up doing a little research and decided to go with Lumber Liquidators to get our laminate.  They have some awesome sales!  We were really trying to go the cheaper route because this house we live in is not the house we will stay in - we actually plan to move in maybe 3-4 years.  We were thinking ah 99 cent or less laminate would be great, but then you have to take in consideration the moisture barrier, the padding, the quarter round and the t-molding.  Alot of different things that can sure add up.  So we decided to get a laminte flooring that already had the padding attached to save money there and it when you do that you actually get a better quality laminate.  Most of the cheaper laminate is 7mm and you actually should get 10-12mm.  So in the end we only had to buy the laminate flooring, the moisture barrier, the quarter round, and the t-molding. 

Now here is the other two dilemmas.  We really did not know how much square footage we were dealing with.  So when we bought our laminate flooring and the other we had to guesstimate what our square footage was before the installer came out to give us a quote.  Well we did not order enough so we had to order more!  And we were debating since it was such a big project and we have ALOT coming up this month - Nick starting a job and the new baby - that should be tackle the project or pay someone to do it.  Well that was an easy question to answer after the installer came.  They wanted way too much money.  So we were back to square one - bought the material and Nick was going to install it with of course help from a good friend!

I know - I know your dying to know what we got - well here is the laminate floor choice and what it looks like in a house - not our house!  Those pictures will come soon I promise.                                                          
                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

We began the project last Thursday night - I probably shouldn't say we because I'm pregnant and I'm not allowed to do anything - its very hard to sit there and watch.  Nick started ripping out carpet and by Saturday our friend Mike and Nick took on a huge project this past weekend and got about half of the house done - minus the quarter round and t-molding.  So we are hoping to get the house done or almost done before baby is here, because my house is a mess!!!!!!!!!!  And the dust is horrible. 

More to come with photos but I will leave you with a before picture of our mauve carpet and what the flooring looks like that we are putting in our house.  By the way I LOVE IT so far - its beautiful and really does wonders to our house.

Mauve Carpet (Before)